28 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



" a summer's run at grass" to be injurious to them, 

 and why I prefer my own place of never turning them 

 out at aU, except, as I before observed, under par- 

 ticular and favourable circumstances. 



As I was not in the world fifty years ago, I cannot 

 tell what hunting was in those days ; but I have 

 often conversed with those who have seen and described 

 it ; and I should conceive that the Revolution of the 

 French empire could not have been more complete 

 than has been that of fox-hunting within the period 

 alluded to. The style of the hound, the horse, and the 

 man ^ who rides him, have all undergone a change in 

 the regular march of time ; and fox-hunting has not 

 been excluded from that blaze of new light that has 

 dawned on our present age. Whither this light will 

 extend, or what it wiU set fire to, is not for me to 

 trouble myself about here. It is enough for me to 

 observe that, whenever improvement finds its way 

 into one part of an establishment, it must be accom- 

 panied by improvement in others, or the benefit of 

 it is lost ; and if the fox ^ and the hounds go faster in 



^ A modem fox-hunter, stepping out of his carriage by a covert- 

 side, looks more Uke as though he were going a-courting than fox- 

 hunting. Those of the Old School thought this was carried too far. 

 The late Mr Forrester, of Willy Hall, in Shropshire, who hunted that 

 country many years, gave his coverts, when far advanced in life, to 

 a pack of fox-hounds set up in his neighbourhood by some farmers. 

 Having ridden out one day to see them, he was asked how he liked 

 them ? " Very much indeed," replied the veteran : " there was 

 not one d — d fellow in a white-topped boot among them." 



- A fox found by the drag, as was the custom in former days, as 

 soon as it was light, and before he had digested his chicken, could 

 not be supposed to run so fast as one whipped out of an acre of gorse 

 at one o'clock in the afternoon, as is the fashionable time at present. 



